Being a Third Culture Kid — someone who grew up in multiple cultures, Pico Iyer's talk about home makes me happy. He's view about home being less about a piece of soil and more about a piece of soul is very insightful. Pico, is not a believer, and yet he unwittingly echoes a truth proclaimed by Jesus about the Kingdom of God being inside of us. Also ironically for a non religious person, Pico has fantastic insights after spending some time in a monastery. He talks about how vital it is to stop movement in order to find stillness and direction. Again, echoing the need for Shabbat Shalom.

Beyond the soul. Pico talks about an exciting and important phenomenon. It's about a tribe of people, who are much more curious and flexible about learning cultures and world views that are different from theirs. There are over 200 million of us now. It could be one of the biggest countries in the world. No wonder the US president is half Kenyan and grew up in Indonesia and Hawaii.

I am absolutely convinced that most people don't live out of a place of passion, and are therefore living unsatisfied lives. You can hardly blame them, in an post industrial world, it's much easier to fall in and get by with minimum resistance. There are many obstacles to living out of a place of passion. It's not practical, it's not what people expect of you, it might not make you rich and famous, it's scary and too new agy of an idea. And yet deep inside, most of us feel a deep need to live like that.

I just had lunch with a good friend, a remarkable professional, who was feeling the need to change things because his work, although well paid lacked significance and passion. Very few people even get to that place, as to question the status quo. Because, what if the questioning leads to a need to change things? Scary.

I had a rough day, so I picked up a book I had started reading a few months ago but never finished. It's an obscure book, not a best seller. It was written in the 17th century by a Jesuit priest named Jean Paul de Caussade. The title of this treasure is Abandonment To Divine Providence.

It's a bit wordy and it sounds...well, old. But you will not find any book on reliance on God that is more uplifting and transforming.